Paper short abstract:

This paper explores temporal and spatial mobility within the Chadian oil zones with a particular focus on the interaction between villagers and the oil security apparatus.

Paper long abstract:

The implementation of the oil complex most of the time goes with the deployment of security and safety technologies to secure oil installations and to insure a peaceful oil exploitation. Following Ferguson, this deployment aims at creating a kind of enclave. In the Chad the oil zones are populated and the deployment was to be done within villages, fields and bushes. So there are very regular interactions of the local people with this security apparatus.

The security apparatus is a mix of national security forces and private safety companies. Oil companies' need for "total security" inferred a continuous reinforcement of security measures in order to avoid any threats. As there it is not a kind of isolated enclave but a mix of oil installations and villages, this interweaving necessitates some readjustments in the way people move and deploy their activities in their usual living context. The paper intends to analyze the deployment of the security technologies in the oil zones and the ways people cope with it in their everyday life.